Dance And Human History

Introduces the work of Alan Lomax and his colleagues in developing choreometrics, a cross-cultural method of studying the relationship of dance style to social structure. Shows how the group, including Forrestine Paulay and Irmgard Bartenieff, analyzed dance films from allover the world and established a connection between patterns of movement and patterns of culture. Produced by Alan Lomax and Forrestine Pauay for CHORP. A documentary examining the relationship between dance movement and cultural structure using the choreometrics system developed by Alan Lomax and collaborators. The film analyzes dance footage from cultures around the world, exploring how movement patterns reflect climate, labor systems, technology, and social organization. Through comparative visual examples, it connects physical expression to broader cultural development. : summary of a ten-year cross-cultural study of dance uses a system for the analysis of dance movements (choreometrics), revealing interesting parallels with cultural development. Dance may be analyzed by ‘trace forms’ that is, whether movements are one-dimensional (linear), two-dimensional (curvilinear), or three-dimensional (spiral). Dance movements are found to respond to three variables: climate, method of food production, and the sexual division of labor. Linear movement and solid trunk style are characteristic of colder climates and of cultures using stone, bone and wood tools. Curvilinear movement and articulated or multi-trunk style are characteristic of warmer climates and cultures in which the use of metal is prevalent in tool-making. Footage of cultural dances from all over the world illustrates the theory. Shots: includes older footage (1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s) native people make music and dance while wearing traditional clothing- South American, Ceylonese fire dancer, Africa, Europe (Germany), whirling dervishes of Turkey, Ostrich dances of the Andes, the Sudan, American love-in in Los Angeles, Burmese hill farmer with woodwind instrument, Navajo, Spanish folk dancers, Indonesian candle dancers, New Guinea, Polynesians, 1, 2 and 3 demential movement, fire by friction, pounding fibers, fishing, Eskimo game, carving a pig, Australian aborigine, Malay, South American using digging stick in jungle garden, sea men in canoes, headdress, ritual, India, Bali dance and sculpture, Siamese dancing girls with long fingernails, Chinese monkey dance, Japanese harvest ceremony, Indians, Salmon fishers of the northwest coast (North America), Aztec & Inca descendants, Malaysia, drumming, Tibet, Scotland, English horn dance, square dancing, old Harlem footage, west African, east African, Masai, North Africa, belly dancer, Hungary wedding, Indonesia, Micronesia, children in grass skirts, Polynesian hula, warrior dances in Africa, Peking Opera, Java, chanting, shows maps of areas of the world and describes the categories of dance that are found there.